A multimodal approach to polysemy: the senses of taste and smell

This study explored whether co-speech gestures and linguistic markers help distinguish between the literal and figurative meanings of taste and smell , building on prior findings related to the verb touch . To determine whether patterns found for touch generalize to additional verbs, we aimed to (1) compare gestures associated with taste and smell , (2) examine the motivation behind frequent gestures associated with taste and smell , and (3) describe the relation between spoken words and the meanings of taste and smell . Gesture analysis showed that while gestures help differentiate the meanings of touch , they do not exhibit distinct patterns between literal and figurative meanings of taste and smell . Linguistic analysis showed that only object quantifiers were frequent when conveying literal meanings of taste and smell . Although negation and verb modifiers were key in distinguishing the meanings of touch , they were not commonly used with either taste or smell .